Different Pilots, Same Flight
by BlackFeatherz29
Summary: AU TV pilot episodes reimagined with Naruto characters. Includes Chuck, Supernatural, Merlin, etc. Pilot 1: Expelled from Keio, Sakura has a deadbeat job at a bookstore when a supercomputer is stuck in her head. Misc het pairings, no yaoi.
1. Chuck 1

Different Pilots, Same Flight

By BlackFeatherz29

Chapter 1: Chuck

Welcome to the first chapter of my biggest idea yet. For those of you who know me, yes, I am still working on my other stories. This is just so cool an idea that I couldn't pass it by. Besides, this is like the easiest sort of fanfiction to write yet. I've got the characters down, and the story down already. Hopefully, this will go faster than my updates usually do.

Special thanks goes to Nemrut and Payce who helped me with the title. Any suggestions on how to make it better?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Chuck. I'm just having fun with this idea.

* * *

The party was in full swing. Colorful crystalline lights hung from the ceiling corners, giving the normally practical living space a snazzy retro feeling. The fountain in the middle of the courtyard was strewn with flowers, the hostess's personal touch. And of course, the punch flowed abundantly and was potent enough to set ablaze.

Yamanaka Ino weaved through the laughing, bobbing bodies with practiced ease. One goal occupied her mind that completely destroyed any hope of her enjoying her own party. After the third time combing her way from the porch to the courtyard without success, she lost her patience and made a beeline for the stairs. This was not going to happen, not at her party.

"FOREHEAD GIRL!"

A bang announced Ino's presence as she threw the door inward. There was no answer except the visual cue of a pink sheet looped around the bedpost hanging out the window…

Ino stuck her head angrily out into the night air and glared at the two escapees below. They squeaked and quaked, midway through rappelling down the brick wall.

"Um, Lee was just teaching me how to rappel down a vertical surface in case a terrorist came to my room in the middle of the night…" came the feeble excuse.

"No excuses!" Ino yelled. "Get the hell back into your room!"

A second later, she stuck her head back out and glared at the other escapee. "Lee, what are you doing here? Go home!"

* * *

"I don't understand what this is all about," Sakura whined as she slouched in the chair facing Ino's mirror. "I already told you that I'm not attending your party, so what's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal?" thundered Ino, dumping a cloud of hair spray onto her stepsister's pink hair. "You won't even come to the party that I threw for your birthday! I've even personally asked _boys_ to come! Actual boys! Not those losers that you hang out with at that crap bookstore!"

"But they're all your friends…" Sakura sighed, trying dutifully not to wince too much as Ino viciously stuck pins into her scalp. The dress itched, too. The inner lining was rough and rubbed against her thighs, and she wanted nothing more than to escape through that window and play video games with Lee until morning.

But once Ino got her hands on something, she wouldn't leave it alone until she had gotten it to look and behave exactly what she wanted it to. Thusly, she was trapped.

"Yo, Sakura! Catch!"

Not a split second later did a football spiral through the air directly at her face. Sakura ducked ungracefully but managed to avoid the lethal leather spheroid.

She was still blinking with surprise when Kiba jogged over followed by his huge pet dog. "Sorry about that just now. But your ducking skills are still top notch."

"Of course," she replied dryly, ruffling Akamaru's fur. "One can't hope to survive in this house without developing some excellent survival habits."

"Enough fooling around, Kiba!" scolded Ino, hustling Sakura quickly away toward a few moderately good-looking men with expensive-looking silk shirts.

Sakura squirmed in her itchy dress and heels as Ino introduced her in a loud voice. The men began paying a modicum of attention.

"So… you're Ino's sister, Sakura? You're both really cute, but you don't look much like her…?"

"I'm her stepsister," Sakura answered robotically, thinking longingly of her trusty computer humming on her desk in her room upstairs. "Our parents are gone."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that."

"Mmmhmm."

"And what school did you go to? Ino said that you went somewhere famous."

"Keio. I was expelled in my fourth year, though."

"Oh, I had a buddy who knew a girl who went there! What was her name, Hina-something?"

"Hongo Hinata," supplied Sakura hollowly, eyes unfocused. "Yeah, I think she's an accountant or something now…"

* * *

Hongo Hinata dropped out of an air duct, landing sounding on bare feet and glancing around expertly with steely grey eyes. It was clear that she was most definitely NOT an accountant.

The sound of loud footfalls further down the hallway sent her sprinting in the other direction. Ducking into a side hallway, she spied movement in the corner of her eye and slid onto the floor as gunshots punctured the wall where her torso had been a second ago.

Panting, she jumped back to her feet and threw a fist through the single pane of glass to seize the heavy metal fire extinguisher and hurling it through the double-paned reinforced glass wall. Bracing herself for a second, she jumped through the resulting hole, landing heavily on the concrete roof of the nearby building.

She pulled herself to her knees as gunshots were heard in the hallway from which she had just jumped and turned back to see more black-suited troops heading up the emergency stairwell to her current location.

Hiking up her pencil skirt, she took a running start and leapt over the edge of the roof onto the rooftop of the next building a few feet below. The strenuous physical activity was taking a toll on her body, and she spotted a metal car garage below and braced herself as she threw herself onto that and rolled off to the ground below.

But before she had taken more than three steps toward sweet freedom, a loud shot rang out and she collapsed on the spot, a bloody hole through her chest. Her last gasping action was to scroll through her phone, selecting a single contact and pressing the send button.

A pair of black booted feet approached behind her prone body, and she grinned triumphantly against the rough asphalt as the life left her. "Sorry, Sasuke-kun. You're too late."

"Says you," came the cold voice above her, and a second shot ended her ragged breathing.

Only the blinking 'sent' screen and resulting address on her phone gave credit to her merciless killer's claim.

* * *

"… and then we really hit it off then, playing Warcraft until like an hour before class started. I honestly don't understand how she did it, you know? I mean, we were perfect for each other, and then she just came barreling in. And I guess I understand the shame in having a girlfriend who was expelled, but you'd think that since we've been through those tough times, he would have been there for me during then…"

It took Sakura a period of time to notice that nobody was listening to her anymore. The space in front of her was empty, the men gone, and her feet hurt. She sighed again. There she went on that random tangent again. It wasn't going to work, no matter how many times Ino dolled her up. It didn't seem like she was ever getting out of that rut anytime soon.

The party looked like it was winding down anyway, so she decided to take her leave and just disappear for awhile. She didn't want to see disappointment again on her sister's face.

Closing the door to her room and leaning her back against the door, Sakura heaved another massive sigh. She seemed to be doing that a lot these days. Somehow Ino had decided that if she just took action and kept on going, Sakura would finally be able to move on. And somehow, Sakura knew that it didn't work that way.

It wasn't just a simple expulsion. It wasn't even a simple breakup or backstabbing best friend betrayal. It was more than that. That chain of events had completely and utterly destroyed her life, and it was going to take more than five years to recover from that.

Sakura was interrupted from her depressing thoughts by a small sound from her computer. She kicked off her shoes and went to take a closer look. It looked like an email. And it was from… Hongo Hinata?

She stared at that notice for an indeterminate amount of time, emotions crashing inside of her. That seemingly shy girl had played the biggest role in destroying her life, and now she wants to reconnect? Sakura almost shut the monitor off in anger, but something stopped her. What if there was something important? It could possibly provide some well-needed closure, or else make it all worse.

No, this was no time to make the wrong decision. Curiosity overrode spiteful desire, and Sakura clicked on the link before she could stop herself.

There was no message, but there was one attachment. Double-clicking on that brought up a black screen with one line on it and a blinking box afterward:

'When all else fails?'

Sakura was immediately hit with a wave of nostalgia. She used to be such good friends with Hinata, and they had had a small inside joke that they had used to get over post-exam jitters.

'Overdose on whipped cream', she typed into the box, and pressed enter.

And then everything turned white.

* * *

Sasuke picked his way through the curled black ruins of a burned-out structure. "You wanted to see me, General Sarutobi?"

The old dignified-looking man stood in the center of the room and inclined his head slightly. "Major Uchiha. Yes, I did call for you."

He gestured at the surrounding damage. "I have a new assignment for you that involves the contents of this room and what you found on Agent Hyuuga's phone."

Sasuke didn't react. "This was her doing?"

"Correct. Agent Hyuuga went rogue, took the valuable contents of this room, and fled. If not for you, she would have escaped and dropped off the radar. Your country thanks you for your efforts and your sacrifice. However, the trail does not end there. In her last moment, she sent the contents of this room to an outside source that we are currently tracing at this minute."

"If I may ask, what were the contents that were so valuable?"

"A super-computer, if you will. We developed this source of information as a way to share intelligence among our various units, but development has been long and treacherous. The first version, called the Izanagi no Mikoto after the god of legend, failed to activate. However, our engineers devised a way to properly harness the intelligence of the computer by endowing it with a sort of consciousness. In short, this second version, the Izanami no Mikoto, possesses artificial intelligence."

"And Hinata stole it? How?"

"This is a mystery that we intend to find out. There is no way to access the computer without exposing oneself to it and thereby downloading it, of which there has been no positive result of yet. Our scientists have concluded that the currently version may be usable if the subject can survive the download, but as of right now no one has succeeded."

"You think that Hinata downloaded this super-computer and remained unharmed? How can that be possible?"

"I don't know. The good thing is that you successfully intercepted her before she could do any damage, but we have no control over whoever she sent it to. They may be accessing it as we speak…"

* * *

The first thing that Sakura realized was that it was morning. The second was of the itchy tulle underlining of her party dress. She hadn't even gotten to take that thing off? Wow, she must have been roaring drunk. Strange, but she didn't seem to remember drinking any of that potent punch…

The slamming headache that she was experiencing almost made her missing the blinking message on her monitor screen. Large flashing white letters proclaimed, 'Download Complete'. What the hell?

A quick glance at the alarm clock told her that she shouldn't waste any more time thinking about unnecessary things. She'd take care of this later. Now, she had to get ready for work.

After showering, dressing in her uniform (khakis and a polo with sneakers), and grabbing coffee along with an extra Advil, Sakura carefully maneuvered her way to her car without once encountering Ino or her boyfriend. She really didn't need that to aggravate her headache.

"Sakura-san!" Lee came jogging up from an adjacent apartment in a manner that looked far too casual to not have been timed beforehand. "How was the party? Did you meet anybody nice?"

Sakura sighed on remembering. "Not really, Lee. I ruined Ino's party again without meaning to, and I don't really want to talk about that. Hurry up; we're going to be late."

Arriving at what Ino called 'the crap bookstore', Sakura and Lee made their way through the back door and navigated their way expertly through the maze of old dusty tomes.

"Good morning, everyone!" Lee called jovially, waving energetically at the fellow workers lazing throughout the store.

Kakashi, her boss, gave a wave through the doorway of his office but didn't look up from his 'educational' reading. Shikamaru didn't stir from his early mid-morning nap. Chouji ignored them all and continued working his way through his huge breakfast. Temari gave a jolly wave and went back to her gossip magazine and low-fat latte, and her strange brother Gaara had already disappeared beneath piles upon piles of priceless flaky books. The other strange brother, Kankurou, was nowhere to be seen. Probably ditching again. Kakashi was too lazy to fire him.

"You do not look healthy, Sakura-san," observed Lee, stowing his satchel neatly into his metal locker in the employee's lounge and extracting his apron. "Did you partake in too much of Kiba's punch? I am told that too much alcohol decreases a person's youthfulness until one is nothing more than a sunken husk. Please, do not wreck your youthful body indiscriminately!"

"Don't work yourself into another rant, please," Sakura groaned, tying her apron around her waist. No matter how much she loved Rock Lee, she could not stand it when he started ranting about youthfulness and lotus blossoms, especially when she was the subject. Sakura could still remember on the first day of second grade, when Lee had confessed his undying love for her and she had flung a handful of woodchips at his face and run away. He'd earned a stammered apology and a large amount of respect the next morning at recess when he'd saved her from a handful of older boys who thought it'd be fun to pull out her hair as souvenirs. And she'd returned the favor by standing up to a bunch of Libbies who were trying to bully Lee about his abysmal fashion sense and caterpillar eyebrows.

Nevertheless, weird bowl-headed Rock Lee would have to give up pursuit of the heart of his lotus blossom but rather her undying loyalty as her best friend. And through their bond grew a love for video games, books, and all things nerdy. Needless to say, Ino didn't particularly like him as he had moved on from his childhood crush on Sakura to a not-much-more mature crush on her, as well as him being a major contribution factor to her withdrawal from the outside world all these years.

As the resident computer expert, Sakura rounded all the employees and went to work on them. "You guys, you may not realize that technology is becoming more and more important in the world since we live in a bubble of updated books," ("Who even needs books?" muttered Shikamaru, peeved at having been woken from his nap), "but lately there's been a deadly virus making its way around, and I have to warn you about this before the only two operational computers in this store are trashed."

She summoned up a video. And all the employees winced as they watched the normally harmless Icha Icha Paradise porn vid (not that it ever was quite harmless) turn a notebook into charred pieces of metal. "Don't you dare let Kakashi get his virtual hands on that video, or else this store goes down. Got it?"

* * *

"Sakura-san! We've got a new shipment this morning, and there are a few orders that we have to deliver."

Sakura assessed the conditions of the employees in the store. Temari looked rather hung-over this morning, so she would have to wait until later. Gaara always scared the customers. Shika… aw, screw him. Chouji looked like he was almost done with breakfast, though.

"Chouji-kun, would you mind delivering this package to this address?" she asked, handing him a list. Chouji grunted either in affirmation or not; she didn't much care. He never talked much (except to rant), but one thing she liked about her was that he got things done.

As he got up to leave and brushed the crumbs off his shirt, Temari dragged her away insistently. "Girl, it's a Hottie Alert! There's a hottie coming in right now!" She instantly started applying more makeup (which she didn't need) and glancing surreptitiously toward the entrance.

Sakura rolled her eyes. What did she care that a 'hottie' was going to walk in? What did she believe in true love when the love of her life just up and dumped her for her ex-best friend? What did she care –

Oh wow.

The person who walked in was indeed attractive. Average height, muscular under his casual suit jacket and plain t-shirt, and that rugged, likeable face.

Sakura disliked him on sight.

"So… what can we do for _you_?" asked Temari flirtatiously, leaning on the counter showing off her low-cut blouse.

'Bugger off, for all I care,' Sakura thought, wearing a fake smile. 'Stupid good-looking studs. Always looking to break girls' hearts…'

"I'm looking for cookbooks, actually," the stud in question answered, smiling in a friendly manner. "I'm kind of a ramen connoisseur on the side, and I heard that this store has a lot of rare books."

Temari's giggles and smile subsided as she gave the hot guy one last look and turned to her co-worker standing beside her. "Well, in that case, I recommend Sakura here to give you the lowdown. She's got the entire floor plan in her head and I'm sure that she'll get you what you want."

Sakura glanced at her in irritation. "You do not just push customers onto me whenever you feel like it," she hissed softly. "Whatever happened to your flirting?"

"I don't like guys who do cooking," Temari sniffed. "They're stupid and girly."

Sakura nearly threw up her hands in exasperation but turned around and directed the customer to the appropriate aisle.

"So, your name is Sakura, am I right?"

The female in question turned to look dubiously at him. "If you're hoping to pick me up, you're sadly mistaken, Mr.…?"

"Uzumaki Naruto, at your service," he answered with a silly sort of bow. "Hey now, don't get so defensive. I'm just being friendly here."

Sakura felt a little bad for being so hostile, but she wasn't going to apologize. Let him blame Hongo Hinata for that. A perfect distraction came in the form of a young boy wandering through the aisles with shifty eyes.

"Well, here's the cooking section. You can probably find your way around this area by yourself; you're a big boy," she said with a smile, happy to be getting away from the friendly guy who caused funny fluttery feelings to sprout in the pit of her stomach.

It turned out that the errant boy was looking for one particularly obscure book to impress a girl. How cute. Undoubtedly fun to mess with, but Sakura relented at his earnestness. Ah, young love. "You'd better make that girl happy or you're not allowed in this store ever again," she told him as he scurried away in relief, not noticing the fond smile that Naruto wore as he witnessed the entire scene from an aisle away.

Temari and Lee were giving her weird looks when she came back to the central counter. "You go girl!" Temari smirked. "He left you a call card."

Lee was grinning as well. "Honestly, I did not like him at first, Sakura-san. But then he and I traded workout tips, and I think that he may be a decent man yet. I wish you all the luck in the world!"

Sakura gaped, although internally she felt oddly relieved. "You guys! I'm not even interested!"

* * *

"You may believe that you do not desire human interaction," Lee lectured, pulling up to the curb of the apartment complex that he, Sakura, and Ino shared, "but I do not think that that is healthy. I verily believe that a man's influence may be your long-lost fountain of youthfullness!"

"Not you, too!" Sakura cried, rolling her eyes and trudging her way toward the front door. "Okay, he might not have been as bad as I thought he was, and he may be good-looking and all, but you can't believe that one guy is going to make my life what it was before. See, I live in the real world, and in the real world I know that jocks like him don't associate with depressed and jaded nerds like me."

Opening the door, the last thing she expected to see was a black-clad ninja in the center of the living room, caught in the act of stealing her precious computer.

A long silence ensued as the occupants decided how they were going to react. Lee, as usual, went first.

"I cannot allow such an unyouthful presence steal my beautiful lotus blossoms's beloved possessions!" he bellowed, snatching up one of Kiba's golf clubs and brandishing it wildly. The ninja dropped his booty onto a shelf on the wall and did some complicated-looking karate moves in return. And then Lee charged ("NOOOOO!" screamed Sakura, fearing for her computer's sake), and everything went to hell.

Not only did Lee not succeed in incapacitating the ninja but he became the victim of the golf club. And his large muscle mass became used for pinning Sakura down when he was thrown on top of her after getting whacked with the golf club. Before either of the two downed nerds or the ninja could move, though, the shelf holding the computer gave way and the precious cargo smashed onto the floor into a thousand tiny pieces.

The ninja quickly decided that it wasn't worth staying any longer, and leapt out the doorway and into his getaway car. As he peeled away from the sidewalk, he angrily tore off his facemask, revealing the handsome but flustered face of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Damn it!" he muttered, wiping his sweaty face with a hand.

* * *

And there you have it: 1/2 of the pilot episode of Chuck, reimagined with Naruto characters. Feedback, reviews? My stories don't normally get a lot of those, so I'd appreciate anything you would like to say.

PS: I know Hinata's last name isn't Hongo; I'm not stupid. It's for spy purposes...

Next chapter will wrap up the Chuck episode. And after that, look forward to Supernatural.


	2. Chuck 2

Different Pilots, Same Flight

By BlackFeatherz29

Chapter 2: Chuck

So I finally finished this. After all the stress and oppression of college, I've finally managed to finish this. Hooray. Now if only my exams would go away so I could actually concentrate properly... uuuuurgh. Thanks goes (somewhat grudgingly) to Payce, who once again helped me slough through this thing.

Chuck chapter is finally done, onward to others. I really did put a lot of effort into this chapter, so please be nice and read and review.

Disclaimer: Neither Chuck nor Naruto belongs to me. I just own my interpretations of the characters and the corners I cut to make them fit. Plus the bits and pieces that I added.

* * *

In a rare moment of waking, Shikamaru gazed intently at the shattered computer. Despite his laziness, his expertise was unparalleled. The trick was to get him when he was awake.

"Nothing I can do," he told Sakura gravely. "It's gone. Destroyed. Tragically."

Sakura swallowed hard. "That was five years of my life right there," she sniffed.

"What if you were unwittingly the target of ninja vendetta and he returns tonight to strangle you with his nun chucks?" asked Chouji in that same ominous tone, staring gravely at her.

Sakura decided that getting away from Chouji when he turned weird was more important that weeping for her murdered PC. "Um… yeah. I'm just going to go next door to the convenience store and get some … stuff."

She ended up wandering through the sparsely-populated concrete aisles a bit more than she had wanted to in the first place. Honestly, it gave her entirely too much time to think about unnecessary things, such as Keio, her traitorous roommate, and what exactly she had sent her in that email.

Spotting a man standing in front of a display of lawn clippers, Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "Excuse me, sir, but would you happen to know where to find the—"

He turned, and she had one fleeting look at his face before her vision went blurry and strange pictures and symbols began flashing through her retinas. Among them were pictures of this man – no, this assassin, code named 'Mizuki' from Eastern Europe – and his notable files, ID's, kills…

Before Sakura had a chance to catch her breath or finish her sentence, Mizuki turned and glared at her, sending chills down her spine. "What do you want?" he asked, low voice slightly accented.

What the hell had just happened? Seriously? But Sakura caught her bearings; survival was foremost. Somehow she knew that above all else, she needed to get the hell away from this man.

"Y-y-you know what?" she stuttered, holding up her hands and slowly backing away. "I-I-I think I g-got the w-w-wrong guy. L-lemme go and find someone else. I'm s-so sorry…"

Turning around and trying to walk away without drawing attention to herself, Sakura felt the eyes of the assassin on piercing through her back. Breathing hard through her nose, she tried not to panic, especially when her ears picked up the faint but unmistakable sound of somebody else's feet following her own.

She swore that she heard the sound of a blade scraping against steel. Unable to hold back a tiny, terrified squeak, she threw caution to the winds and ran for her life.

She got as far as two aisles away before slamming into a large older man with a Costco apron. "I'm so glad you're here!" she blubbered, head whipping around violently.

"… can I help you with anything?" he asked, staring down his flat nose at her.

"Um, um, there's this guy! Really creepy, kind of a Terminator vibe, scary white hair –"

"Green flat jacket?" finished the employee, looking at something behind her.

"Yes! That's it!" she exclaimed, before turning around and finding the European assassin standing in the checkout line, chatting amiably with the clerk and purchasing a pair of lawn clippers. She fell silent after that.

The employee gave her one last dubious glance before walking away, leaving her blinking confusedly.

What the hell had that been? How come she was so sure that this man had been an assassin when there was no evidence to back it up? Wait – there was evidence in those pictures… if they could even be called pictures.

Sakura gingerly touched her large forehead and wondered if she was going crazy.

Meanwhile, the man at the checkout counter dropped his friendly smile to glare intently at the pink-haired girl several yards away. The handle of a gun flashed into sight before being covered by his jacket as he left.

* * *

Sufficiently freaked out, Sakura walked cautiously back to the bookstore, nervously glancing at every person around her.

Unknown to her, Uzumaki Naruto sat in the driver's seat of his Porsche eyeing her intently, phone to his ear.

"I already told you," he said, "the computer was destroyed beyond repair. It was already fried before I got there."

On the other end of the line, General Sarutobi paced gravely in his office. "Then the operation is over. Your work is done."

"Fine, but what if she has an external hard drive? She could have saved a copy on there."

"This operation is no longer under our jurisdiction, Uzumaki. The ANBU are on their way; Uchiha will be coming out. You're being recalled."

"Uchiha?" Naruto growled. "I'm being recalled because of Uchiha? That guy's a burnout! A dick! He is in no way fit for duty!"

"He's a killer", corrected Sarutobi. "Old school. Even though he's the one who shot Hyuuga, there's no way he could have known about any of this. Or you, for that matter."

Naruto ground his teeth in frustration. "But I can fix it," he replied with determination. "If there's a way, I'll find it. Just give me 12 hours and if I can't do anything by then, then send in the backup." He hung up without further ado, glancing back at the back of a nervous pink-haired girl through a window.

* * *

"I'm losing my mind, I'm losing my mind, I'm losing my mind…" muttered Sakura, head buried in her arms at the service desk. This was not happening… no matter how much science fiction or fantasy she liked reading, this was not happening…

An impatient-sounding tapping disturbed her self-pity. Sakura groaned. "Lee, just leave me alone –" and found herself looking into the sunny face of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Oh, um, hi," she greeted clumsily, rubbing her face of any signs of excessive emotion. "You were the one with the cookbooks, right?"

"Right," he confirmed, eyes sparkling. Sakura swallowed. "I really enjoyed the one I bought yesterday, but I would really something more fitted to my budget and busy lifestyle – I just moved in recently, actually."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah." And then to Sakura's semi-amazement, he dipped his shoulders, looked furtively to the left and right like a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar, and gave her an adorable embarrassed smile. "See… I don't really know where anything is around here, so I was wondering if you could show me around -"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Rock Lee waving his long arms at her encouragingly.

"—that is, if you're free?"

"Ooh, Sakura-san has the most empty schedule that one could possibly possess!" cried Lee, bounding over and shaking her shoulder in a jolly manner. "She would be delighted to accompany you!"

Sakura shot him an irritated look and removed his hand, but had to secretly smile at him. "Well, apparently my schedule is wide open."

"Cool," Naruto replied, looking relieved and smiling widely.

A few minutes later, as Uzumaki Naruto crossed the boardwalk and made his way to his car, another pair of eyes was watching him. Uchiha Sasuke sat behind the tinted windshield of his own vehicle, his impassive black eyes unblinking.

* * *

Opening the door to Ino's apartment, Sakura found her stepsister and her boyfriend seated together on the couch, still in their vet clothing.

"Ino, Kiba," she began, "don't freak out or anything…"

"What is it, forehead girl?" asked Ino, sounding annoyed but actually very intrigued.

"On this most joyous occasion, Sakura-san has found herself a youthful date!" cried Lee, flying through the doorway and catching Sakura in a quick hug.

Ino let out a squeal of delight, leaping up to wrap her arms around her socially hopeless younger sister. "Rad!" added Kiba, clapping her loudly on the back.

Releasing her, Ino took a fresh look at Sakura and joy immediately turned to worry. "Oh, girl, what are you going to wear?"

Sakura shrugged, knowing that there was no way out of this.

Not long after, Ino was ransacking Sakura's closet with enough energy to rival the Energizer Bunny.

"So, this guy, Naruto," she said, "is he nice? Cute? Tall?"

"Yeah, um, I met him at work…"

Ino wrinkled her nose at the thought of meeting a guy at the crap bookstore, but recovered her mood when she struck (to her) gold and plucked out a hanger.

Sakura took one look and began, "I don't think I should wear –" before Ino shushed her impatiently.

"Trust me. I know what guys like, and I'm going to make his jaw drop when he sees you tonight, no matter who he is!"

Meanwhile, Uzumaki Naruto paced the length of his hotel room in the middle of a very different sort of preparation. Under his dark blue dress shirt was strapped a Kevlar vest and a set of extra ammunition. And glancing in the mirror, hair newly washed, he stopped to inspect a ring of poisonous needles he wore around his ankle as well as the secure weight of the gun tucked in his belt.

It was time.

"Remember what I told you about the 'no old boyfriend ' rule, okay?" said Ino, talking a mile a minute as she strode beside Sakura, correcting bits that didn't need to be corrected. "Don't talk about old boyfriends; it'll drive a wedge between you guys."

"I'm fine!" replied Sakura somewhat irritably, batting away Ino's worrying hands. The truth was, she was terrified, and the heels and dress weren't helping. It had been five solid years since she'd broken up with Sai, and it had been even longer since she'd gone on a single date.

"Knock him dead," Ino told her, smiling. "You're completely worth it, and don't you forget it."

Sakura could only manage a weak smile back before a sleek silver Porsche pulled up to the apartment entrance and she wobbled forward to meet her maker.

* * *

"I asked her out on a date," Naruto said into the speaker of the phone. "She'll be here any second now."

"You're on your own," Sarutobi warned. "If this doesn't work out…"

"I'll be fine," Naruto replied, spotting Sakura walking toward him. "She doesn't look dangerous."

"Appearances can be deceiving, Uzumaki. Don't let your guard down."

"And what if something goes wrong?" Naruto challenged. The girl had reached the side door and was pulling the handle open.

"What else? Kill her."

* * *

"A Mexican place? Really?"

Sakura shrugged ruefully. "I figured that you looked like a Mexican sort of guy. What, were you somehow disappointed?"

"No, no, it's fine!" Naruto amended quickly. "It's just –" he gestured with his head toward a Mexican mariachi band serenading from a raised platform "—kind of not what I'd expect you to like… no offense or anything."

Sakura gave him a dubious look, but forgave him for his pre-assumptions. "Well, I suppose you're right about how I normally don't do Mexican, but the thing that you have to remember is that I'm a food connoisseur. I make it up job to investigate different types of food."

"Really now? So how did you happen to come across this place?"

Sakura rolled her eyes at his fake patronizing tone. "My friend Lee. You know, the one with the weird haircut and the big ol' eyebrows? He's an idiot sometimes but his nose for 'youthful' food is not to be doubted. I'd trust any recommendation that he gave me. You know," she added conspiratorially, "this is actually the first time I came here, so blame him if it's not to your tastes…"

Naruto chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. "Lee, huh? You must be pretty close to him."

Sakura had to smile fondly at the thought of her eccentric best friend. "We've been friends since second grade when he had the biggest crush on me. He's grown out of that, thankfully, but he hasn't grown out of much else. He's still far from normal even though all of us try to make him behaving in a manner resembling normal so as not to scare the customers away, but he's still pretty far from it."

"Based on my speculations, I don't really see that happening anytime soon."

"But I wouldn't have it any other way. He's the closest person in the world to me, excluding my sister Ino, but enough about that. How about you? Any demented skeletons in your closet?"

Naruto tensed imperceptibly for a second, but then appeared to relax and stare thoughtfully into his drink. "Me? I'm not really that interesting. I'm a pretty much a normal-all-around guy who moved from Yokohama to escape a bit from some not so fond memories."

"Oh, so there are skeletons in your closet!" exclaimed Sakura teasingly. "What was so bad there?"

"Um… I used to have this friend, a girl. Never like a girlfriend or anything, more like an adoptive sister. Lived right next door from me for a few years. We were really close, but what I didn't notice was that she was a completely different person than I had known. I actually found out recently that she'd been involved with some really bad people for a long time, and I just kind of wanted to forget all about this. Sorry, but I probably have more baggage than you might have initially thought."

Sakura chewed her straw, knowing the feeling of somebody who you thought you knew betraying you. "Well, I suppose it's worked… I mean, I'm here, right? I could handle your baggage for you!" She was blushing before she finished speaking. Where on earth did that come from? Baggage handler? How lame.

Naruto gave her a startled look, then he promptly burst into laughter. "I like you!" he declared between peals of laughter. "You're surprisingly funny!"

"If you didn't like me before, why'd you ask me out?" Sakura replied tartly, trying to hide her secretly pleased look behind her dark blush.

As their food arrived, Sakura found herself anticipating the rest of this date. She hadn't enjoyed herself this much since she and Sai had gone on their first real date (after the Ferris wheel fiasco) and she'd felt like she had really found that missing part of her. Perhaps this might work out after all.

* * *

Sakura first noticed the guy at the far table while scanning lazily around the restaurant's decorated walls trying to find some strange and wonderful detail to spice up her conversation with. Of course, it was her female hotness radar that found him, not her eyes.

He wasn't dressed for flashiness. Black hair, black eyes, black suit. Was there not a subtle bone in his body? Nevertheless, in the shady mood-lighting of the Mexican eatery, he sunk into the shadows like some sort of phantom. His face, however, was not to be ignored. He was HOT. Strong, straight features, pale skin, piercing eyes. At the moment, those piercing eyes were riveted onto the laminated menus of the restaurant, but nevertheless Sakura felt herself periodically glancing back at him even though he never seemed to look up.

However, it was the TV fixed to the top corner that really caught her attention. There was sort of local news broadcast going on, some military general with his armored escort –

Nothing prepared her for the sudden overload of flashing pictures and information. Screwing her eyes shut, she immediately clenched her teeth to try and hold back a gasp and the sudden massive headache.

"You okay?" came the immediate concerned inquiry from her date. Sakura took a few times to blink hard before putting on a smile and nodding vigorously. Internally, though, she was more confused than ever. What the hell was going on? This was the second time now. How did her brain suddenly know that this was not just any general, but that he was the target of the assassin Mizuki? And that she suddenly knew exactly what the general was going to give his speech on and she hadn't so much as glanced at the television screen?

This was getting extremely freaky. So, in an attempt to cover up the chill that had crept up her bare shoulders and the awkward lull in conversation, she desperately pointed out the dark man in the corner ("What a weird guy, huh? Hahaha!")

What she didn't expect was that instead of smiling and going along with her sudden hysteria, Naruto tensed up and his eyes turned into ice chips, his face hardening into a stone mask.

"Naruto…?"

But he didn't reply; instead, he started glancing around the restaurant in a predatory manner, completely ignoring his own half-finished meal. Sakura watched him, completely bewildered.

When at last he did speak, he gave her such an intense look that she had to blink to process. "We need to get out of here," he whispered urgently, grabbing her hands and pulling her upward.

"What?" Sakura asked, her fear turning into anger. "What are you talking about?"

Naruto's eyes signaled toward the pale-faced stranger in the corner. "I know that you don't know me all that well and that you think this is all sorts of crazy, but you have to trust me. That man is dangerous."

Huh?

"We have to leave NOW."

He pulled her out of her seat with surprising force and slapped a couple of ten thousand yen notes onto the table, and they were gone.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" Sakura demanded as soon as they reached the side of Naruto's car. "Who was the guy in there?"

Naruto didn't reply, just opened the driver's door and urgently motioned for her to get in.

She crossed her arms impatiently. "I asked you a question, you jerk! I want to know just what I'm running from before I get in this car!"

A flicker of irritation crossed his face. "Just get in!" he growled. "I'll tell you later, but for now I need you to trust me!"

Sakura hesitated, but then she caught sight of a hulking black Hummer coming right in front of them, its bright yellow headlights blinding her temporarily, and fear overrode anger. She scurried in, the car's engines starting with a roar before she had closed the door fully.

"Hold onto something!" Naruto advised as he looked through the back windshield, jammed his foot on the accelerator, and started backing up at a record-breaking speed.

Privately, Sakura thought that a better piece of advice would have been to buckle her seatbelt, but she was too busy screaming her head off to express this sentiment aloud. The eerie yellow headlights of the tank-like Hummer combined with the roaring engines only increased her panic; as fast as they were backing up, the other car was going forward at an even faster rate. Pretty soon they would be crushed under the Hummer's thick tires –

A bone-jarring noise came from the nose of Naruto's silver Porsche as it collided with the grill of the Hummer, but he paid it no notice.

"There's a back alley back there," he bellowed above the roar of the dueling engines. "Get ready to run!"

Turning expertly into a hidden trash alley at 60 miles per hour, Naruto braked, causing both of the car's occupants' heads to snap forward violently.

"Let's go!" Naruto yelled, throwing the car door open. Sakura clumsily obeyed, numb disbelief setting in. Sure, flashes of strange information accompanied by migraines were bad, but this was something straight out of a bad action movie.

'This is not happening,' she thought vaguely as she and Naruto left the relative safety of the car and began running down the dark street on the other end of the alley. Shortly, the numbness was shattered by the loud, unmistakable sounds of automatic gunfire.

"They're shooting at us?" Sakura cried in disbelief, stumbling along on her heels.

"Of course!" answered Naruto, also in disbelief. "Didn't the car that tried to run us over tip you off already?"

Sakura ignored him. "What in the world did I ever do to deserve this?" she wailed, raising her face to the heavens and willing herself to go faster.

* * *

It wasn't until they made their way to the top of a corporate building that Naruto felt it was safe enough to talk.

"How do you know Hyuuga Hinata?" he demanded, looking in much better condition than he should have been in.

This was the absolute last thing that Sakura expected at this moment. "What… what?" she wheezed, trying to catch her breath. "Hinata? Shy Hinata from Nagano? What the heck does she have to do with this?"

"Hinata and I worked together for the Espionage Division of the Military Polices Corps. "

"What?" Sakura could hardly process what he was saying. "Wait… Hongo Hinata is a spy?"

"Not Hongo," Naruto corrected hurriedly, glancing around the rooftop with – was that a gun? – drawn from his waistline. "_Hyuuga_. Hinata was from a famous family, and wanted to break away in order to be herself. And," he looked pained, "she _was_ a spy. A rogue one."

Sakura stared at him in complete disbelief. Not only did Hongo Hinata not come from the country, but she was part of the prestigious Hyuuga family? And she wasn't just a spy, she went rogue? This was like something out of a bad spy movie –

"I need to know," Naruto cut in, interrupting her slow mental processing, "did she send you anything? Anything at all?"

His intense eyes bored into hers, making her throw up her arms in a panic. "She betrayed me and everything that I had! Why would I still be in contact with –" Sakura paused, a troubled revelation flashing across her face. "… she did send me something."

"What was it?" demanded Naruto unnecessarily, eyes flicking from her to the edges of the building, as if he was expecting somebody else to be coming. "Tell me!"

"It was pictures, alright? There was – there was a bunch of pictures flashing across the screen, and they all blended together into blackness, and I just felt myself being sucked in like it was some sort of digital black hole or something. It was the weirdest damn thing – wait, was I not supposed to look at them?"

Naruto's intense glare gave her no answer, but he seemed to have absorbed this information. He took a deep breath. "Sakura, look, it's very likely that I'm going to have to aim my gun at you, okay? Don't freak out."

"Don't freak, why—"

"It's late, I'm hungry, and this is all just pissing me off."

A dark figure materialized from a corner of the rooftop, his steps exaggeratedly loud on the concrete. Sakura noticed Naruto's shoulders tense before she saw the new person's face.

It was the guy from the restaurant. Only now he was smirking meanly instead of looking coldly disinterested. She really should have known…

"All right, let's cut this crap and hand her over to ANBU," the mystery man in black demanded.

Eyes still on him, Naruto grabbed his gun and aimed it at Sakura in one swift motion, causing the other man to draw his gun as well. "Military Corps gets her first, Uchiha," he replied equally coldly. "If you come any closer, I'll shoot."

"… N-Naruto-kun?" stammered Sakura, eyes flickering nervously from one dangerously armed man to the other. "… I'm freaking out here!"

"Fine," Uchiha answered nonchalantly. "If you shoot him, I shoot you. Then I leave both of your bodies up here to rot while I go get myself a late night drink. Maybe bring my buddies along, too."

While all this was going on, Sakura decided that between staying here and anticipating the exploding of her frantically beating heart, she'd rather risk being shot in the back. Abandoning her common sense, she turned and started to run.

"Sakura, no!" came Naruto's cry, but he needn't have done so. As soon as her sight hit the tall building directly in front of her, Sakura's eyes began to cross and her mind filled with dizzying images accompanied with a blast of pain. She almost sank to her knees as the overload of information sank in.

By the time she turned around, breathing hard, she almost didn't care that there was a gun trained on her. "They're going to kill him!" she exclaimed as if this were the answer to life itself.

Uchiha and Naruto glanced at each other for a split second in confusion, then Uchiha demanded, "Who?"

"Homura! The guy from the Council; they're going to kill him!" At their collective disbelieving expressions, Sakura threw up her hands in exasperation. "Look, something is wrong with me. Something is seriously broken with my brain – I'm remembering things I shouldn't know. I-I keep having these – these flashes of weird information surges and my head feels like it's going to split open – "

"Okay, Sakura," called Naruto, advancing cautiously, "then tell me. What kind of stuff?"

"I don't know!" Sakura cried in frustration. "I don't know – stuff like um, a European assassin turning up in the nearby convenience store today! I don't know about you guys, but I really don't think that's normal."

Uchiha looked like he was going to take action, so Sakura swallowed her fear and pushed onward, far too terrified of the dark-haired man to stop. "Hey, um, last week you guys – the ANBU – you guys found some blueprints of a hotel, right? It's _that_ hotel," she pointed to the building behind her, "and then the Military Corps discovered the schematics of a bomb in Europe. I'm telling you, the bomb is in that hotel right now—"

She shut up when Uchiha suddenly turned his gun on her, the red guiding laser quivering on the middle of her chest.

"She was working with Hinata," he growled furiously, advancing menacingly.

"No!" Naruto had trained his gun at Uchiha. "She opened Hinata's email." Addressing Sakura, he explained tersely, "Sakura, those images were encoded with a top-secret technology that encrypted all the government secrets into them. If you saw them, then you know all of this country's secrets."

"… but there were thousands of them," stuttered Sakura, confused.

Uchiha scowled as he absorbed all this. "Wait a minute… that means that all of our government's secrets are in this airheaded woman's head?" Sakura's eyes crossed momentarily as the red laser traveled up to her forehead, staying there like a deadly red bindi.

"It's not just that; she is the computer now," Naruto said, but he was interrupted by Sakura's freak-out finally coming up to the surface.

"Wait a minute!" she burst out. "What does this mean? What's happening to me?"

"We don't have time for this," Naruto answered harshly. "Do you know where the bomb is?"

"Wait – what?" Sakura couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Didn't you hear me? I don't know! I can't help you with this…! Call Hinata, then! Isn't she a secret agent, too?"

"Hinata is dead," Naruto snapped, regret flashing across his face. "… She died sending those secrets to you."

For a moment, Sakura was stunned. The information took her breath away, affecting her much more deeply than any news of supercomputers stuck in her brain could. "Hinata is dead?"

Her naked shock was broken by the sharp sound of a gunshot piercing the atmosphere. Uchiha lowered his smoking gun, scowling. "Sorry to break up the sobfest, but seriously. Can we defuse the bomb now?"

Sakura took a deep breath to steady herself, and opened her mouth. "According to the schedule, the Councilman should be on the stage right now…"

Moments later, the three of them raced through the lobby of the fancy hotel, dodging people left and right and leaping over luggage trolleys.

"Which way?" Naruto demanded as they paused at a corner. "You're too valuable to take in; hurry up and tell us first."

"The fastest or the easiest?" Sakura asked, panting.

"The fastest!" hissed Uchiha.

Considering this for a second or two, Sakura set off at a run toward the fountain in the middle of the landing. "No, come back here!" shouted Naruto behind her, but she wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Her mind was focused on the blueprints downloaded into her brain.

The three of them thundered through the fountain and right toward the hallways on the other side, sliding to a halt by a nearby door. "This one!" Sakura said, and Naruto and Uchiha grabbed the handles and burst into the room.

"Where's the bomb, Sakura?" asked Naruto tersely.

Sakura was dismayed by the sheer size of the room. It teemed with dignitaries seated at circular tables and white-jacketed waiters with their large silver serving plates. "I – I don't –"

And then she spotted one particular silver serving platter parked on a cart.

"That's it," she said in a small voice. "T-that's it right there." She couldn't hide a wince as Uchiha grabbed her shoulder in a claw-like manner and dragged her over.

Inside the platter was a laptop fused to rows upon rows of red-wrapped explosives via candy cane-striped wire. An ominous beeping emanated from the machine, made even more obvious with the countdown that was displayed on the screen.

"It's too late to evacuate", Naruto said, studying the setup.

"Any ideas?" asked Uchiha.

"Disconnect the laptop."

"No good. That's definitely the trigger."

"Disconnect the cables."

By this time, the security team in place had noticed that there was a bomb in the room. The Councilman feebly tried to calm down the masses, which were quickly starting to panic.

Naruto shook his head in frustration. "Sakura, is there anything else you remember about the bomb?"

Sakura tried to will herself to pump out more information, but it wasn't possible. She wrung her hands in defeat and stuttered apologies, but suddenly the air filled with the cheesy music of the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare and she realized that Lee was calling.

As Naruto and Uchiha turned back to the bomb, Sakura shakily answered her phone. "… hi, Lee."

Many miles away, Rock Lee was sitting on her bed, rocking back and forth excitedly. "My beautiful lotus blossom! How goes your date?"

"Um, I'm a little busy right now," Sakura replied, strangely calm as she watched Naruto and Uchiha frantically trying to tackle the bomb and screaming dignitaries fleeing the room. "This really isn't a good time."

"In a good way?" Lee demanded, jumping up and down on the bedsprings.

Sakura sighed. "Lee, why are you calling now? Don't you have anything better to do?"

"But I have worry in my heart for you!" exclaimed Lee. "And our Most Esteemed Boss Kakashi has inflicted my computer with a deadly case of Icha Icha Paradise, so I lack the most basic entertainment!"

A very strange but plausible idea began to form in Sakura's mind, and without a word she hung up on him. Ducking down beside Naruto and Uchiha, she said, "I have an idea" and reached for the keyboard of the laptop.

Uchiha grabbed her wrist and scowled at her. "Hey, there. This isn't Call of Duty, and you're not a ninja."

"I know," Sakura replied, "but I've come across this model of laptop before. It's got a special override."

Naruto and Uchiha exchanged tense glances as precious seconds ticked by.

"I can do this!" exclaimed Sakura, glaring at both of them. "If there's anything I know, it's nerd territory."

More seconds ticked by and Uchiha's grip became harder with tension. Finally, Naruto gave up. "She's our best shot," he said grudgingly, and Uchiha reluctantly let go of her wrist.

Sakura hooked up to the Internet with lightning speed and arrived at Freegle Search. "Icha Icha Paradise," she mumbled as she typed the words in.

"You're looking at porn?" Uchiha asked disbelievingly.

Sakura glared at him. "Shut up for a second, jerkface, and let me work."

The search results came on, and Sakura felt a momentary lapse in her confidence. What if it didn't work? What if she clicked the wrong link by mistake?

'No time to doubt', she thought as she jabbed the enter key and strange unappetizing sounds came from the website along with very NSFW images. The looks on Naruto and Uchiha's faces would have been almost comical if the situation hadn't been so tense and her eyes hadn't been screwed closed.

As the countdown rapidly neared 0, the sounds of dying electronics was heard, and just before the final second ticked away, the laptop powered down with a sad whine and all was silent. All that could be heard was the labored breathing of the three who stared down at the silent bomb.

Naruto was the first one to break the silence. "You did it," he said to Sakura, a genuine smile breaking out over his face.

"I did it," she echoed dizzily, feeling lightheaded. "I diffused… a real bomb…" As the realization of the gravity of the situation came crashing down, that was when her dinner came rushing back up, and she ran for the bathroom.

"Don't puke on the C-4", Uchiha called to her crankily.

* * *

Sakura could hear them arguing as she came back from her bathroom break still wiping her mouth. A dull sort of throbbing had crept into her neck and her poor abused feet, and her temper wasn't faring much better. Screw spies and secrecy and what was right for the country. She was going home, dammit.

And what did they turn out to be arguing about but her?

"You're trying to decide what to do with me?" she challenged, and had the pleasure of seeing both of them turn to her with the smallest bit of discomfort.

Sakura became aware that their last bit of conversation had contained the words "her friends and family" and began seeing red. "What does this have to do with my sister?" she growled in a fair imitation of Uchiha's signature speaking style.

Naruto had the grace to attempt to redirect the conversation, but Sakura was in no mood for politeness. "You guys have to leave my sister out of this. Her, and her boyfriend and Lee."

"We'll see," replied Uchiha airily, increasing Sakura's irritation.

"Look, Hinata sent that email to me and just me. I've got this thing in my brain now, which means that I have a bargaining chip. I get to call the shots. I'm the one you need to get all your work done, and you can't touch me right now."

Uchiha looked furious and grabbed at her arm, but Sakura swatted him away. "And right now, all I want to do is go home and forget that all this ever happened." She shoved past the two men roughly and stomped to the side of the street to call for a taxi.

Just before getting in, Sakura took one last look at Naruto and screamed, "This was the worst date of my life! Thanks for making my night, you jerk!"

* * *

The easy part was facing Ino and Kiba. Sakura simply ignored them and stomped up to her room, ignoring Ino's plaintive calls and Kiba's encouraging bro phrases. She then screeched at Lee to get off her bed and to go home, probably scaring him into next Tuesday. Sakura then slammed the door with a satisfying bang and locked it securely, not wanting Ino to come up seeking answers.

Sakura moved on autopilot, too spent to pay attention to anything she was doing. Midway through scrubbing the makeup off her face, she paused.

Somehow, she could swear that her reflection in the mirror was smirking.

And then the flash struck, only this time she wasn't receiving information. Instead, she felt herself mentally being flung back against an invisible wall and staring into the face of… herself.

"Hello, Sakura," her reflection said, smiling in a predatory manner. "It's nice to meet you."

After all the excitement of tonight, Sakura simply couldn't summon up the energy to be surprised.  
"Who are you now, my Tomato Inside The Mirror?"

When her reflection looked confused, Sakura concluded that it couldn't be her evil conscience if she hadn't understood that bit of nerdspeak. So much for that theory.

"My name is Izanami no Mikoto," continued the reflection after a beat. "You must have guessed that I have something to do with the information surges you keep experiencing."

Sakura heaved a sigh. Of course that had to be it. That damn email was linked to everything. "Yeah, I did kind of guess that."

"But what I'm really interested in," said the reflection, "is why I'm here at all. I have never materialized fully in anybody's mind; my touch usually drives humans insane. Tell me, why am I here?"

Sakura shrugged. "Some bitch from my past randomly sent you to me, and I opened it by mistake. Guess I'm just special that way."

The reflection smiled at her, seemingly genuinely pleased. "Special indeed. You seem like a very interesting person, Haruno Sakura. I should like to reside in your mind and be able to experience all that you feel, and perhaps then I will regain some humanity myself."

Sakura felt a strong sense of sci-fi déjà vu, but she was tired and this was starting to freak her out. "You're welcome. But don't get too comfortable in here; I'm not doing this willingly. Nami – can I call you that? – you have to realize that you're a guest inside my head, and like I told those agents from before, this is my life that this is happening to."

However, 'Nami' wasn't paying attention. "You have a guest", she said, gesturing to the world outside. "I think this may be important."

Another sudden flash and Sakura felt her knees buckle, catching herself at the last second on the sink ledge. She blinked hard to clear her swirling vision, stumbling out of the bathroom doorway just in time to see none other than Uzumaki Naruto stepping through her bedroom window.

He froze as he saw her looking at him, a 'deer in the headlights' look upon his face. He looked pale and haggard in the same clothes he had been wearing the last time she saw him, and he didn't try to hide his exhaustion.

"Hey there, Sakura," he waved, trying to make this all seem routine. "Sorry about this, but I really needed to—"

"If you wanted to talk to me, the least you could have done was wait until daytime," Sakura interrupted crankily, still holding her head. "And for your information, I told you to stay away from me and my sister."

Naruto held his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Relax, I'm not here for her. I just needed to clear this whole mess up. Uchiha Sasuke and I talked to our higher-ups and they've agreed to let you go back to your life. Granted, Sasuke wanted to lock your sister up in a bunker and flush all the national secrets out of your head via psych tank, but thankfully the government decided against it."

"So what now?" asked Sakura, anxiety taking over anger. "You guys know that I have this inside of my head. What are you going to do about it? How am I going to get it out? I don't want any of this…"

"We don't even know if that's possible," Naruto admitted. "Truthfully, you were the only subject, albeit unofficial, who was able to download the entire Izanami no Mikoto and be able to process it."

"Oh yeah, I met Nami just now…"

"Who?"

"Izanami no Mikoto, right? The computer. She talked to me just now when I was in the bathroom."

Naruto blinked several times, apparently having a hard time processing this. "Well… this is very intriguing," he managed. "We've never known it to be able to do that before. Nevertheless, for now you'll go back to your old life, and we'll protect you while you work with us."

"So what now, I'm like this unofficial secret agent?"

"Pretty much. And like secret agents, you can't let anybody know for their own good. Not your sister, not your friends."

Sakura paused for several long seconds. When she spoke again, she felt like her words were very far away. "I can't understand why Hinata would do this. Just when I thought I might be able to start forgiving her for all the things she's done, she dumps this on me. Why would she do that?"

Naruto looked at her closely, opening his mouth and choosing his words carefully. "Sakura… you have to know that whatever happens in this situation, Sasuke and I are going to try and make the best of it. You may not like how I operate all the time, but whatever happens, I need you to trust me. Sasuke, too. He's rough, but he's not such a bad guy all the time."

He stopped, obviously wrestling with his words. "For me, I don't know what was going through her head either. Hinata was my best friend. And Sasuke … he and Hinata were together. You have to understand, Sakura, that we were both impacted by this event too and that we're all just trying to make the best of it. And right now, the best thing we can do is just go with it. Do you understand?"

* * *

Just as she predicted, breakfast was chaotic. Ino's screeching drowned everything out except for Lee's bellowing, and Sakura had a headache by the time the meal was over.

She managed to assure them that 1) there had been a big understanding, but 2) she had cleared it all up and 3) no, she would not give them permission to beat her date up. By the time she was out the door, she longed for the peace and quiet of the dusty old bookstore. It was actually kind of refreshing after all the excitement of the night before.

Arriving with a steaming cup of coffee, Sakura settled herself behind her counter and picked up a pencil in preparation to tuck it behind her ear. However, she was interrupted by her habitually late boss, Kakashi.

"Sakura-chan!" he called, slouching his way out of his office. "I've actually got a special job for you today."

"Sure, boss, but what…"

"We've got a new co-worker," Kakashi said gleefully from under his mask. "Since you're one of the most senior employees, I was thinking that you could show him the ropes."

Sakura shrugged and accepted. Pencil still clutched untucked in her hand, she turned to where Kakashi was gesturing excitedly and beheld the vision of dark scary Uchiha Sasuke standing there, wearing the standard taupe apron and what he probably believed to be an amiable smile (but what was in reality the exact opposite).

Temari snaked up behind her and whispered animatedly, "Isn't he just a dish? He's my next target!"

Sasuke caught her eye and gave her a little nod of acknowledgement that somehow made him seem even more menacing.

At the same time, Naruto walked casually out of one of the tall aisles of bookcases and gave her a small wave.

The pencil in her hand splintered into her palm with a small crack.

'Don't freak out,' she thought, panic rising.

* * *

So there that goes. Phew. Glad to be done with that.

For those of you who are familiar with Chuck and its mythology, here are some easter eggs:

- Sai was Sakura's old boyfriend in college, and yes, he does still work for Root. Guess what that's a stand-in for?

- Naruto didn't just have a pure friendship with Hinata... make of that what you will.

- Yes, Nami is supposed to represent Inner Sakura. I thought that might have been cool :)

Until next time, I suppose. I'd really love to have some reviews, although I write these for entertainment purposes and not reviews. It would still be very nice.

Next time: Supernatural. Please tune in!


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